


This Town, This Sea

by mytimehaspassed



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:01:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He dreams in colours and tastes and smells.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Town, This Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Этот город, это море](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3626988) by [wakeupinlondon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakeupinlondon/pseuds/wakeupinlondon)



**THIS TOWN, THIS SEA**  
IN THE FLESH  
Kieren/Rick  
 **WARNINGS** : Spoilers for the series; graphic depictions of violence; mentions of suicide.  
 **NOTES** : This is a total AU from the end of the second ep.

  
He dreams in colours and tastes and smells.

It’s not always Lisa, but it’s always someone, arcing beneath his mouth and fingers, his sharp nails as he scrapes and separates their skin, pulling muscle and tendon apart and bringing the gristle up to his lips, the meaty, metal smell of blood on his tongue. They will cry and scream sometimes and he will dig his fingers deeper inside of them, moving their fists aside effortlessly, his clumsy limbs and their weakening strength.

He wakes up breathless, with one palm to his chest as if to steady his heart, and has to remind himself, once, twice, that the pulse he thought he felt in his throat was never there.

***

Jem sleeps with a Colt under her pillow, her hand gripping the handle, and Kieren opens her door only once, his tongue on the roof of his mouth, his hands shaped into fists. He wants it to be like it used to, like when they were only little, he wants to tell her about the guilt he feels, crippling him where he stands, but her hand tightens on the gun and he turns away.

***

What he remembers before the treatment centre is small and insignificant.

The way a girl had reached for her gun when he had placed his hands on her, tearing into the skin of her stomach with long marks, the way she had stretched her palm out against the wood of the floor, her fingertips brushing against the handle. The way a man had closed his eyes with the first bite, his cheeks wet with tears, his veins ice blue underneath his pallid skin. The way one of the boys from school had tried to stand his ground, the knife in his hands glinting in the moonlight, even though he never really got to use it, even though he had died crying out for his mum, his voice wavering until it finally, finally stopped.

The way Jem had looked at him that day, her gun shaking in her hands.

He doesn’t ask Rick what happened in the desert, who he killed, but he wants to. If only because it’s slightly therapeutic to remember the faces, daft as it sounds to him and to Rick, who listens to Kieren’s stories with a cold, clinical detachment, used to the casualties of war even before the Rising.

He moves his mouth in short bursts, uncontrolled, and Rick watches him and doesn’t, the stitches on his face gleaming. They don’t touch, in the car or in the pub or on the way back from the woods, when Rick had gone with his father without a second glance, Rick’s gun heavy on his shoulder, unused. They don’t touch, not even here, in the cave where Kieren had slit his wrists, his eyes glazing over the childish scrawl carved deep in the rock.

Rick remembers stories from their life before, his fingers hovering over Kieren’s, remembers only the good parts, the funny parts, making Kieren laugh long after he should stop, the candles burning lower and lower, the wax melting in rivers. He doesn’t talk about Kieren’s death after the moment in the car, Rick’s anger and Kieren’s unshed tears, after the man and the little girl are given over for nine hundred pounds, Rick’s dad sullen and quiet and saving up his words for later, when Rick is a child in his home again.

Kieren doesn’t mind the spotty memories, Rick’s gloss over the Rising, the way he forgets where and when he died, the way he looks when Kieren asks about his death, just once, only once, his mouth wet with anticipation. Kieren lets him remember what he wants to, forget what he wants to, and shifts closer to him on the dull rock, letting himself believe that he can feel Rick’s warmth.

***

Amy tells him about her kills, in that delighted, childish way she can sound sometimes.

He pretends to be concerned, but inside, there’s something screaming for blood.

***

His dad touches the back of his neck with two fingers, gives him his shot in one, long rush, and Kieren feels the memories pulsing up to the surface in what’s left of his brain, pushing, pushing, pushing. He remembers Lisa, but it’s one instant of his dirty fingers bringing her brown skin up to his mouth, chewing, before he’s back and his dad is saying, “Alright, alright, alright,” breathing heavily beside him.

He doesn’t tell him that it feels like swimming backwards, like moving but never going anywhere, the drugs stabbing through his body, painful, and his dad never tells him what he thinks when he touches Kieren’s skin and it’s cold, leathery, lifeless beneath him.

***

Rick used to text him at night, asking him to meet somewhere, the Legion before he was barred, the cave when they were both feeling nostalgic, but now he just climbs in through Kieren’s window, his feet silent on the floor. He places a hand in Kieren’s hair and Kieren opens his eyes at the touch and Rick smiles slightly, looking lost in Kieren’s bedroom.

“Rick?” Kieren says, his voice barely above a whisper, but Rick shakes his head once, his other hand steady on Kieren’s chest, and it’s now that Kieren can see his face, naked and white and scarred, devoid of the cover-up, devoid of contacts, and sits up, gently, leans back against the wall.

For a moment he wants to ask if Rick has been taking cues from Amy, has found the Undead Prophet that he’s tried so hard not to talk about, not to follow, but the words die on his tongue before he can gather the courage to be so flippant.

“Wanted to see you, Ren,” Rick says, and its one, two, three moments before he opens his mouth again, correcting himself. “Needed to see you,” he says, and Kieren’s fingers are trembling, Rick’s hand still on his chest.

Kieren moves his head slightly, an aborted nod, and Rick doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move, until he does, pushing up against Kieren, his mouth finding Kieren’s mouth, his fingers in Kieren’s hair. Kieren lets him kiss him, lets Rick take Kieren’s bottom lip between his teeth, and it’s slow at first, but then Rick starts to move faster against him, starts to move rougher, and Kieren makes a sound in his throat, something that’s meant to say missed this, missed you, and Rick pushes harder, his skin cold and rough against Kieren’s.

Before he left for basic training, Rick had kissed Kieren in the cave, tasting of White Lightning and fags, and told him that he’d see him the next day, his smile hesitant between them. He tastes of nothing now, nothing except maybe sweet, rotting fruit, and Kieren’s tongue touches Rick’s tongue, his fingers plucking at Rick’s clothes.

He breathes an unnecessary breath, and Rick swallows him whole.

***

The vicar reigns fire and brimstone on Sunday and Kieren watches Rick come home after, the knot of his tie pulled out and hanging below his collar, the jacket of his suit slung over his arm, his dad’s palm clapping hard on his back. Rick makes excuses and slips out of the house, catching Kieren’s gaze where Kieren waits across the street, and it’s almost like it used to be, before Rick left, before both of them died.

They walk the boundaries of the farm, their hands touching and not touching, and it’s cold out, their breath fogging from their mouths, but neither of them really feel it. Kieren talks little and says less and somewhere on the road Rick pulls out an old flask from his pocket, offering the first sip to Kieren, who doesn’t think, just takes it, the gin burning his throat all the way down.

“We shouldn’t,” he says, and Rick laughs, a hollow, unkind sound.

Amy’s words echo between them, but Kieren doesn’t say anything else, his hands and face and eyes dark. They pass the flask between them until they both feel sick, leaning over to vomit in the bushes, black bile crawling its way out of their throats, as thick as blood, and Rick’s hand grips Kieren’s forearm, streaking his jacket with the mousse from his fingers.

“Sorry,” Rick says when he notices the fingerprints, but he’s not sorry, not really, and Kieren shrugs like he always does.

***

The flashbacks are worse at night, worse than dreams, and Jem forgets her anger for one, swollen moment in the middle of the night and passes him her Colt, the metal sharp in his hands.

He says, “Cheers,” but it’s quiet between them, insincere.

Jem lays a hand on his arm, warm, and smiles a brief, tight smile before she pads back to her room.

***

He shows Rick his grave in a fit of anger, hopping over the fence with clumsy, cold hands, and Rick watches him watch the headstone, and it’s obscene, the dark hole below them and Rick’s wide eyes. Rick’s grave had been untouched after the Rising, but only because there had been no body to bury, no body to rise, and Kieren had run his fingers over the epitaph enough times to know it by heart, but Rick has never seen where Kieren had been re-born.

He opens his mouth once, twice, and then a third time, unable to speak, and Kieren says, quietly, “I wanted to be cremated.”

“No,” Rick says, sharp between them. “Fuck, Ren,” he says, and he doesn’t need to say that they wouldn’t be here if he had been, he doesn’t need to say that he’s glad.

Rick reaches out, briefly, and Kieren pulls him close.

***

He doesn’t leave like last time.

Rick buries his suit and his medal in the bottom of his cupboard, leaves the framed photo on the mantle, and Kieren writes a note on the back of some parchment paper, tracing out the wings of a butterfly before he feels brave enough to lay it out on the breakfast table, and they wait for an hour in the rain before they see it coming, the steam of the train rising in the distance, billowing like a cloud.


End file.
